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Two Smudde siblings. One blog. No apologies.

The Problem in Mike and Molly

I fucking love sitcoms. Its the perfect media for just shutting down my brain for 20 minutes at a time.

I’m a fan of The Big Bang Theory, I sorta dig Two Broke Girls, I loved Two and a Half Men (pre-Kutcher), and many more before that. Remember when we all used to sit around and watch According to Jim and My Wife and Kids?

At this point I’d like to apologize for my lack of links; none of the clips I need exist online. So you’ll just have to trust that I’ve burned a lot of time watching this and I know what I’m quoting.

I’ve been watching a lot of Mike and Molly this past year and I’ve noticed a problem.

In Mexico it’s “Lupe y Chalupa.”

The things we encounter a lot in Mike and Molly are “coming together as a couple” sort of problems. Dating issues, living together, family and friends. Relatable stuff that they’ve had to crush down into a sitcom pill. Molly is the comic character and she is the humor to where her boyfriend/husband Mike plays the straight guy. She says something/does something funny and the much less irreverent Mike responds.

Many of the situations play out as “the woman is right and the man is a dope.” Lots of feminine v. masculine stereotype jokes. You’ve seen them a thousand times.

But I think the case is different in Mike and Molly. I think its less he’s a dope but more that Molly is fucking up their relationship. But the show keeps rolling over it like its funny.

I was watching a rerun in which the joke is that Molly goes out and buys some expensive shoes behind Mike’s back. She doesn’t currently have stable income and shouldn’t, but she does and its funny. When Mike finds out he’s upset and she says she won’t do it again, to which he responds with something like “I’m tired of you going out and spending all of my money.”

And the crowd goes “Oooooooooooooh!” like he did something seriously wrong. The entire episode is him trying to express to Molly that he’s sorry about what he said. She keeps mocking him throughout the episode in irritation.

Ex-fucking-cuse me. Why is Mike the bad guy here?

She has no job and she isn’t a stay at home wife. They don’t even have their own apartment, instead living with Molly’s mother and sister. They aren’t doing spectacularly well with money and she’s out buying expensive stuff behind his back? Especially when she isn’t bringing money in on the regs?

I assure you I understand the joke. When a couple is living on one income its not fair to call it “your” money. You are a team and should function as one, but Mike has a point here. Maybe he shouldn’t have used the phrase “my money,” but his anger is sound.

They actually do have an episode about combining their finances at some point. They have an argument over Mike trying to buy a classic car. He takes Molly out in it and has conversations about buying it. She finds out he bought it behind her back (he shouldn’t have) and an argument ensues. At the end of the episode they compromise and show each other their bank accounts and check books. Mike is well put together! If he could afford the car, he probably had it all planned out as to not screw himself financially.

Molly drops a hilarious mountain of credit card debt at the table. Mike is astonished but Molly reassures him that its “their debt” because they are such a good team.

Oh you bitch.

Giving him some serious shit when here you are blabbing in at the end about all of your frivolous trips to various exotic countries. No job, lots of debt, and a sense of entitlement. Its hinted at in another episode that she has a lot of student debt that she hasn’t told him about.

Speaking of which- she does this exact thing back to him in a different episode. She gets an advance when a publisher picks up the book she’s writing. She goes out and blows a portion on a new Dodge Charger. She didn’t even talk to Mike; just showed up with it. I’m sure she had plenty of money left over, but wasn’t the entire point previously to plan and work together? No not Molly, its all about her.

Your credit card statement is going to have a weird Charger on it.

They are talking about trying to move out so they can have a baby. Her mom is saying not to rush since her lifestyle doesn’t exactly work so well when she has to budget. Her mom says “having a baby will mean no more traveling, manicures, or spa days” and Molly hesitates when thinking about it.

Wow.

Its worth noting that she used to be a teacher before writing so I’m sure a lot of her debt and luxury come from a place of hard work, but when you are living on one income in your mothers home you should probably start cutting luxuries. They talk about moving out because they are almost done paying the off the $20k wedding.

$20k wedding on one income? My timelines may be messed up but being that they probably had to take a loan out for it this wasn’t during her advance or her school teacher years. Why are you living such a lifestyle when you don’t have the money for it?

She’s painfully impulsive. She broke a window to get back into her house to answer the phone. She convinces Mike to have sex in a 5-star hotel room without actually paying for it. She tells a young homeless pregnant girl that she’ll adopt her baby without consulting Mike. Molly is more concerned with living a glamorous and carefree life while trying to get Mike to take on all the responsibility of having one.